Volt has the power to wield and bend electricity. He is highly versatile, armed with powerful abilities that can damage enemies, provide cover and complement the ranged and melee combat of his cell. The electrical nature of his abilities make him highly effective against the Corpus, with their robots in particular. He is one of three starter options for new players.

Acquisition

Volt's blueprint and components can be researched and purchased from the Tenno Research Lab. Volt can also be bought complete from Teshin for 60,000‍60,000 once players have achieved Typhoon rank in the Conclave.

Warframe Guides

“I am the Lotus. I will guide you, but we must hurry.”

Guides are created by users like you. They aren't as strictly regulated as most pages, so keep an eye out for dated or subjective information.

Have your own build and playstyle? You can contribute too! Instructions are within.

Trivia

The volt is a measure of electrical potential, a type of potential energy that could be released if an electrical current is allowed to flow, hence Volt's electrical essence.

During closed beta, Overload was notoriously overpowered as a result of a bug that would allow the lightning to daisy-chain throughout a level, killing any enemy that had spawned.

Before Update 7 Volt was one of the 3 initial starter Frames. He was replaced by Mag due to a desire of the developers to have a female starter. Volt then replaced Loki as a starting Warframe in Update 14.

Volt has had three drop changes since Update 11; prior to Update 11 his components dropped from the J3-Golem on Jupiter. After The Hunt For Alad V, his components were moved to Survival mission rewards, making him the second Warframe obtainable through regular mission rewards (the first was Banshee). Update 12 moved Volt and Banshee to the Tenno Research Labs, and the both of them have remained there since.

The rings on Volt's arms are considered customizable armor parts and will be removed if any other arm plates are used.

Volt's default energy color appears as deep orange-yellow on his body, but the color of any electricity he emits is a darker blue/purple.

The back of Volt's tunic stretches when Volt's legs move apart.

Volt is the first Warframe to receive 5 Augment Mods, 2 of them being Conclave exclusive.

Volt Prime

A glorious warrior from the past, Volt Prime features the same abilities as Volt, but with unique mod polarities for greater customization.

Release Date: March 24th, 2015

Volt Prime is the primed variant of the Volt Warframe featuring more powerful stats: possessing a higher energy capacity and armor, as well as an additional polarity.

On February 22nd, 2017, it was announced that Volt Prime would enter the Prime Vault and be retired from the reward tables on February 28th, 2017. Any preexisting components or fully-built frames will remain as is.

Notes

As a Prime Warframe, Volt Prime possesses a special passive ability where contact with an Orokin VoidDeath Orb will make them release an energy pulse that grants 250Energy to all nearby allies. This effect can only occur once per Death Orb, and can occur even if the Death Orb has been previously destroyed.

Volt Prime has 85 more armor and 100 more energy capacity than his non-Prime counterpart.

Volt Prime, along with Saryn Prime, possess the highest energy pool of all Warframes in the game: 200 at rank 0 and 300 at rank 30.

Trivia

Unlike the other starter frames (Excalibur, Mag, and formerly Loki) with their Prime counterparts, he does not possess their white and olive default color scheme. He also does not have the black and olive default scheme of the dark-colored Primes (Frost, Ember, Rhino) either, instead having his own unique black and yellow scheme.

When using his Shock ability, Volt Prime summons a lightning bolt to strike an enemy from above, along with releasing a bolt from his hand. This effect, however, does not apply to chained enemies and is purely visual. The aerial lightning strike is also unaffected by energy color and will remain white.

Volt releases an arc discharge at a specified location that can chain to enemies within 7 / 10 / 12 / 15 meters of each point of contact. The arc can chain a maximum of 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 times and inflicts 75 / 100 / 125 / 200Electricity damage with a 100% status chance to each enemy.

The Electricity damage bonus is an additive bonus that's applied to the weapon's base damage, similar to an elemental mod. For an unmodified weapon that inflicts 100 base damage, firing through a shield will increase the total damage to 100 × (1 + 0.5) = 150. The weapon now inflicts 100 base damage and 50Electricity damage.

The Electricity damage bonus combines with other elemental types to create compound elements on weapons that have an elemental base damage type, but this does not apply to weapons with a physical base damage type or any continuous-trigger weapons.

Firing through multiple Shields will cause the Electricity damage bonus to stack additively (e.g., firing through 3 shields will grant a 150%Electricity damage bonus). The critical damage bonus does not stack with additional shields.

"Static" refers to static electricity, a stationary electrical charge where there is no flow of electrons.

As a Static Shield will be centered near the HUD's target reticle when cast, the reticle will determine the shield's orientation as it spawns.

The Static Shield can only be cast a maximum of 6 times, casting after the maximum will remove the earliest Static Shield and create a new one where cast.

A Static Shield cannot be cast while a Current Shield is equipped.

"Current" refers to an electrical current, which is the flow or movement of electrons.

Volt has the ability to pickup one of his Static Shields through a context action. Doing so will cause the shield to decrease in size (2.0 m × 3.0 m) and become mobile. Activating the context action again will revert the Current Shield back into a Static Shield.

The position and movement of the Current Shield will be fixed to the target reticle, meaning the Shield will move with the camera while being within 1.5 meters of Volt.

When the Current Shield is equipped Volt will be limited to the use of only his secondary and melee weapons as well as have his speed and mobility reduced.

Enemies hit by the Current Shield while Volt is sprinting will be ragdoll-ed.

Volt will be drained 1 energy for every 1 meter he travels with the Current Shield equipped, on top of the 5.0 s-1 energy drain rate.

Note that though the Current Shield has two drain rates it will still disappear when the 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 second time limit is reached.

Casting Shock through an Electric Shield will electrify it, inflicting 100% of Shock's damage to enemies that pass through it (e.g., Electric Shield will deal 260 damage if Shock's modified damage is 260).

The bonus damage from Volt's passive will also be stacked onto the damage from Shock (e.g., Electric Shield will deal 810 damage if Shock's modified damage is 260 and the Passive bonus is 550 at the time Shock is cast).

The 50%Electricity damage buff can apply to Mesa's Regulator pistols as well.

Casting Ember's Fireball through an Electric Shield will change its damage type and proc to Radiation.

Electric Shield affects certain weapons differently

All primary and secondary weapons will gain Electricity damage and amplified critical damage. Thrown melee weapons, such as the Glaive, are not affected by Electric Shield.

Weapons that have additional sources of damage, such as the Quanta, will have their additional sources affected by Electric Shield so long as the damage can be modified. For example, firing a Torid grenade through a Shield will affect the projectile damage and the area damage. Firing a Mutalist Quanta orb through a Shield will not affect the orb's contact damage (which cannot be modified on the weapon), but it will affect the orb's explosion damage.

Until Hotfix 17.4.2, hitscan weapons and Held-trigger weapons with limited range, would be given a fixed range of 70 meters when fired through an Electric Shield. Note: the Amprex or the Synapse do not gain the fixed range modifier.

Held-trigger weapons will gain hitscan properties (e.g., the Spectra's beam, which has a noticeable travel time, will damage enemies instantaneously after passing through a Shield).

While most hostile gunfire and AoE damage is blocked by Electric Shield, weapons with innate Punch Through, such as a Scorch'sIgnis, can bypass Electric Shield and damage you.

If Shock is cast through Electric Shield with the max bonus damage from Static Discharge (1000) the total damage dealt may be slightly lower than expected (e.g., if Shock adds 100 damage to Electric Shield plus the 1000 bonus damage from passive, the amount of damage inflicted will only be 1098 instead of 1100).

Volt emits a powerful electric pulse, any enemies that are hit with the initial pulse or that enter the pulse's area in first 3 / 3 / 4 / 4 seconds after the cast will become stunned and emit arcs of electricity like Tesla Coils, shocking hostiles who come within 4 meters.

Enemies can still receive damage from outside sources during the initial 4 seconds of Discharge.

Note that while damage from most sources (shooting, melee-ing, abilities, etc.) does not contribute to the Health cap, damage from nearby enemies also under the Tesla effect will. That is, enemies are more likely to reach the Health cap if they are being shocked by other nearby targets affected by Discharge.

Loot crates can also undergo the Tesla effect, but can only be charged once.

The 4 second delay of damage is not affected by Ability Duration mods.

Volt's Passive does contribute to Discharge's total damage output. A rank-3 Discharge with max ranked Intensify and fully charged passive will deal a total of (450 × 1.3) × 7.5 + 1000 = 5387.5 damage as opposed to a total of 4387.5 damage without the passive.

Building for Ability Strength and Ability Duration is the best way to get the most out of Discharge against all enemy types while also complementing Volt's other 3 abilities.

Against unarmored targets, Discharge will deal damage equal to the value of the Health Cap in time less than or equal to 3.33s / 5.71s / 7.5s / 8.89s regardless of Ability Durations above 107%-108%, so building Ability Strength as high as possible with at least said amount of Ability Duration is important when dealing with high level, unarmored enemies.

Against armored targets, Discharge's stunlock will often last the entire Effect Duration due to the amount of damage dealt by Discharge being reduced by armor mitigation, so enemies will likely never reach the damage cap. Modding Ability Duration as high as you can is important when dealing with high level, armored enemies.

Casting Discharge when targets are in a close proximity to one another will ensure that enemies take more damage during the 4 second delay. However, this damage will contribute towards the damage Health Cap, making it more likely enemies will be freed from the stunlock sooner.

Maximization is a form of specialization: mods may be blended to result in values that vary between the top-end limits listed here. Click any maximized link to learn how to build it.

Contents

Volt is a warrior with electrical prowess, more harmful to Robotic/Machine type enemies rather than organic targets and good for those who favor a variety of tactics on the battlefield. Volt's skills allow high effectiveness against the Corpus, normal effectiveness against the Infested, and low effectiveness against the Grineer with the implementation of Damage 2.0.

Skills

Shock

Volt launches a shocking projectile that stuns and deals high damage to a single target, then chains damage to other nearby enemies. While it targets a single enemy, Shock can chain to multiple enemies regardless of their relative positions, so long as each successive target is in the Chain Link Range of each other. This means that it can chain to enemies not in Volt's field of vision (e.g. enemies that are behind Volt or hidden by cover/around corners). The targeting requirements are a lot less restrictive than other directly aimed abilities, such as Saryn's Venom and Ash's Teleport. This, along with the chaining property and the fact that it can be cast while moving, makes it an effective crowd control when spammed if you lack energy for Discharge or need to slow down enemies immediately. Shock also has synergies with Electric Shield and Discharge for added benefits.

Speed

Volt energizes his body and that of nearby allies, granting increased speed and dexterity for a short time. Speed increases the range covered by all combat maneuvers and drastically increases sprint speed (though this effect can also exacerbate any difficulty allies may have with controlling movement). Speed can be used to quickly come to the aid of allies who are down, in pressing circumstances, or enable slower teammates to reach said allies if Volt himself is occupied. The melee attack speed buff makes Volt and allies incredibly fast with dual weapons, and heavy weapons will act as sword type weapons in terms of attack speed. The icing on the cake is that this ability also grants Volt and allies a small reload speed buff.

Electric Shield

Volt deploys a large obstacle of energy that can be transformed into a smaller, personal shield, providing cover for any situation. His third is a lifesaver if you're fighting units with strong bullet or laser weapons. Electric Shield protects you from enemy fire and AoE damage while also bolstering your own attacks. Any projectiles you shoot through and Electric Shield will have added Electricity damage and 2x crit. damage. Shotguns' damage falloff and energy weapons' travel time are eliminated when you fire through Electric Shield. Additionally, some weapons are specially affected when shooting through an Electric Shield (e.g. the Dera is given hitscan properties and the Flux Rifle gains infinite range). There are two types of Shields Volt can create. The default (on cast) is the large, stationary Static Shield. This Shield covers a wide area to defend Volt and allies from multiple angles, while also giving room for allies to take advantage of Electric Shield's damage buff properties. The other Shield is the smaller, mobile Current Shield. A Static Shield can be transformed into a personal riot shield by Volt and will be fixed with the target recital as he moves. Casting Shock through either a Static or Current Shield will electrify it, damaging any enemy that comes in contact with the Shield. Finally, sprinting with the Current Shield will also ragdoll any enemies that come in contact with it.

Discharge

Volt discharges a violent electrical pulse, converting enemies into arc-emitting Tesla Coils that deal devastating damage to nearby enemies. It can turn a room of Corpus or Infested into a mass grave in seconds and stunlock tough Grineer enemies for just enough time to escape deadly situations. Upgrading Discharge increases its Effect Duration, damage and Health cap, the power's range, and radius of the Tesla Coil-ed targets. Discharge not only converts enemies into Tesla Coils, but also any near by storage containers. Casting Shock unto a target under Discharge's effects will overload it and the target will emit an AoE burst that will damage nearby enemies.

Tips

Volt's Electric damage is very well-rounded; it deals reduced damage only to Alloy Armor, so Volt is fairly effective against all factions.

Though technically Volt isn't the weakest Warframe in terms of durability, he only has 15 armor. This is somewhat offset by his higher than average shields, but Volt should not be tanking damage as he dies very quickly if his shields are depleted. He, like Ember, is a glass cannon of sorts; while he can deal high damage, he cannot take damage nearly as long as Saryn, Rhino, Frost, or Valkyr.

For this reason Electric Shield is all but a necessary investment for very high levels missions.

Due to how Volt's damaging powers behave and changes with different enemy types, Volt's powers are most effective versus the Corpus.